'Hypnagogia!': Ingenious, kooky amusement

Published 10:00 pm, Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Some 20 years ago the Talking Heads implored "Stop Making Sense!" To which this month, playwright/performer Josh Knisely can respond, "No problem! Step right inside and see for yourself."

Step right inside the Jewelbox Theater, where Knisely and two well-chosen accomplices are performing "Hypnagogia!" The show is surreal. It has qualities of dream, fantasy and free association. Some of it is very funny. Some of it is a little bit funny. And some of it is not funny at all.

All of it is bizarre in an amiable way.

Knisely is a veteran of sketch comedy, as are his fellow performers Heather Hughes and Cory Nealy. They don't grin or chuckle. They proceed through nonsensical incidents with ludicrously serious determination.

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They don't relax until the final scene, in which Knisely pours cake batter onto his head. He then dons an Easy Bake toy oven as if it were a hat. A light bulb supplies heat. Knisely confesses that the instructions advise using a 60-watt bulb. But wild man that he is, he goes with 100 watts to save time. Then he and his two co-workers sit on the edge of the stage and chat with one another and the audience.

After Q&A and banter, the audience members are told to feel free to scoop cake, or at least warmed batter, off of Knisely's head. Doing so is entirely voluntary, be assured.

In another scene, Knisely uses spray can whipped cream to give himself Mark Twain eyebrows and mustache. Then he recites a Twain reverie about playing spoons. As the whipped cream drips onto a strategically placed plastic sheet, Knisely replaces it. He has a spare can in his pocket, which is lucky. Wouldn't want to run out of whipped cream before the reverie is over.

Other attractions are the nebbishy robot, the bullying voice-activated laptop, the cricket that woos one of those chirpy car door locks, the picture of a half cayman/half horse creature, the fluorescent big bird that dances in black light and the mock instructional visual aids, one about Thomas Edison, pioneer pornographer, and another about men who "thin the herd" by fishing for fishermen.

A plucked instrument with strings that encompass the whole theater and a ghost with a bright light in his mouth who recites doggerel by Hughes Mearns are go-nowhere ideas. Rear-projected computer art animations are intriguing, but not as intriguing as Knisely supposes. Interludes of Hawaiian music are cheery.

Much of "Hypnagogia!" is entertaining. Nearly all of it is ingenious.

None of it makes much sense. But, as obnoxiously patronizing explainers are fond of saying, "That's the whole point!"